Red on the Mirror
by SitDownJohn
Summary: It was a normal day. "Exactly one week, and a couple of hours ago, there was an accident." It was a normal day. (Modern AU)
1. What We Don't Say

**Author's Note: This is a modern AU, and the M rating is for the libral swearing that occurs in the latter half. I hope you enjoy!**

* * *

Jehan was scribbling poetry into the margins of a half-written essay as Combeferre tisked at his work ethic. The others were engaged in similar activities. Courfeyrac on the Wii, Joly pacing with a textbook in hand, Feuilly ramming his cap on, Bahorel harping about a fight, Bossuet wending his way to the kitchen sink, and Grantaire nursing a drink of some description.

The room they occupied was brightly lit. Enough so that Grantaire found the words to complain about it anyway. The furniture looked like it would be more at home in a thrift shop, but at least there was a lot of it. Most of the group was draped on the couch or one of two chairs

"Come on!" Courfeyrac cried, shaking Jehan's shoulder.

"Mm" Came the impassive response.

"It'll be fun!" Courfeyrac reasoned, slightly desperate.

"Of that I have no doubt," Combeferre sighed, turning to face Courf, "But you are making a ruckus. If you haven't convinced him in the last ten minutes, I doubt further yelling will help."

Courf turned away, frowning comically. Jehan nodded his thanks to Ferre and returned to his scribbles.

"Would someone _please_ shut the lights off?" Grantaire growled from the recesses of a beanbag chair.

"Would you _please_ stop drinking?" Courf growled back.

Grantaire declined to respond, instead taking a swig straight from the bottle.

"That's not healthy." Joly commented, peering over a pair of reading glasses.

"Never bothered you before" Grantaire hissed.

"Yes, but-" Joly began.

"Life is more worth forgetting now than ever before" Grantaire muttered, taking yet another drink. Joly, and the others, were momentarily silenced.

Glass shattered.

Fourteen eyes turned to saucepans. Seven heads turned to face the sound. Fourteen ears strained for another.

Another sound came in the form of a hand sweeping the carpet for shards. Bossuet poked his head into the room a moment after. He smiled wanly, holding out a bloodied hand with glass shards collected in its palm.

Joly squeaked, scampering over to look at the hand, Grantaire rolled his eyes appreciatively, and the others merely looked unsurprised by the development.

"I hope you plan to clean that up." Ferre nodded to the hall. Grantaire, having taken a few more sips in the interim, laughed suddenly. Seven heads now turned to look at him.

"Are you going to share?" Ferre asked, tipping his glasses downward after the fashion of a secondary school maths teacher.

"It's just…it looks kinda like the accident. Y'know, with all the blood." Grantaire giggled.

All fourteen eyes widened, and all seven mouths acquired expressions of horror, for Grantaire rarely drank so much that he lost all inhibition. He was still laughing, quieter now, in his beanbag.

Jehan put his work down slowly onto the coffee table. His hands shook. Joly nearly dropped his textbook, saved only by Feuilly. Bossuet left the room, his footsteps echoing into the kitchen. The sound of the sink trickled in.

Grantaire finally ceased his laughter. Ferre wasted no time in wrenching the bottle out of his hand. Grantaire put up a feeble fight, but it was clear he'd had more than even he could handle.

"Dear God" Ferre murmured, seeing several empty beer bottles hidden poorly behind the chair. He looked at the bottle in his hand, one of wine, which looked to be about half filled. "You've had enough" He nearly whispered, looking sadly at Grantaire, who was groping for another bottle.

The room was still silent. Grantaire had a talent for that, in the absence of his foil. Bossuet reentered, joining the quiet.

Grantaire, however, managed to break the cloak once more. He did it by vomiting clumsily on Ferre's feet. Ferre, for his part, didn't react. He just stared. His eyes glistened slightly.

"My Lord" Joly murmured. As far as anyone could recall, Grantaire had _never_ drunk more than he could handle. None of them had ever seen him vomit, certainly. Joly instantly busied himself with a resistant Grantaire. "We'd better get you to bed." He muttered. Feuilly and Courf manhandled Grantaire, kicking and growling, out of his chair. Joly, being several inches shorter than the others, scampered behind. Grantaire flopped onto Ferre's bed face first. Courf and Feuilly left Joly to deal with the mess of a man.

"What have you done?" A voice, Ferre's, came from the bedroom's doorway. He was staring at the ceiling.

"Who're you askin'?" Grantaire slurred, having heaved himself onto his side. Ferre blinked, his eyes surveying the room.

"If you weren't so drunk," Joly hissed, shoving Grantaire's legs onto the bed. "You'd know" He finished. Grantaire blinked drunkenly at the man. Joly was hardly ever angry, and it was generally comical when he was. This…this was not comical in the least. Even Ferre seemed put off by Joly's contorted features.

"This has us all a little wound up." Ferre said. He strode across the room, placing a hand on Joly's shoulder. "Just get him to sleep. We'll talk about it in the morning."

Grantaire was asleep much faster than it seemed he might have liked. He thrashed vaguely and complained weakly, but he was out within five minutes. Joly left the room, seemingly satisfied, or at least apathetic, to Grantaire's condition.

"He'll be fine in the morning." Joly announced.

"And so shall we." Ferre said, making a motion toward the bedrooms, "It's best we all get to sleep."

With practiced ease and surprisingly little reluctance, the whole lot divided themselves between the two remaining rooms and the couch.

Night came and went. The sun rose, casting its rays past the blinds. Grantaire, oddly, was the first to rise, courtesy of what he cursed as "the fucking death light". He stumbled through the hall into the bathroom, nearly collapsing on the sink. He coughed, emptying his stomach once again. This time into the sink.

"Fuck" He groaned, forcing his gaze to the mirror. He looked away right after. The mirror was draped with a bolt of red fabric. "Fuck"

He gripped the sink tighter. Memories, largely fragmented, of the previous night, made themselves known. He shook his head, succeeding only in worsening his headache.

"I didn't…" Grantaire whispered, "I fucking did" He very nearly fell out of the bathroom. He felt along the wall until he reached a door. The door swung open on his first push. In he staggered, flailing against a bedpost.

Joly blinked tiredly at the swaying blob which resolved itself into Grantaire. He was not graced with the forgetfulness that Grantaire was. The _incident_ was as fresh in his mind as it had been during.

"Why are you here?" He asked quietly.

"M here…M here…" Grantaire began his sentence, "M here…I can't 'member…I did…said…shit"

"Eloquent" Ferre said from the doorway. "Did you vomit in a more appropriate receptacle this time?' He nodded to Grantaire.

"S'pose so" Grantaire responded, falling against the opposite wall. Ferre, declining to continue, grabbed Grantaire under the arms and propelled him into the living room. He deposited the walking hangover on the couch and sat beside him.

"The others shall want to know why you said…what you said." Ferre murmured.

"I dun 'member what I said." Grantaire muttered.

"That is a lie. I heard you swearing liberally in the bathroom." Ferre responded, "You compared Bossuet's hand to a dead body…an unfortunately specific dead body."

Grantaire stared into his hands. He swallowed weakly, refusing to look up. Just then, Joly, Courf, and Bossuet slipped into the room. Scarcely a moment later Jehan and Bahorel appeared.

"Sit" Ferre ordered. They all obeyed, scattering on the furniture. "We can't leave this any longer."

"Who says?" Grantaire growled.

"Common sense and Joly's medical text books." Ferre answered, not a trace of humor in his tone, "In the words of Atticus Finch, 'The best way to clear the air is to have it all out in the open'"

"Screw him" Grantaire echoed. Ferre made a small show of ignoring him. Normally, such an insult of an exalted book character would have provoked quite the fight, but not today.

"Exactly one week ago-"

"Plus a few hours!" Grantaire interrupted

"Exactly one week, _and a couple of hours_ ago, there was an accident." Ferre began to retell the story. Every face in the room made it obvious that the story was already known. He plowed on regardless, "A young man was leaving a Political Science class. He was on his way to the student health center to pick up his friend, who had been in a fight. The young man-"

"He has a fucking name." Grantaire hissed venomously.

"The young man, Enjolras, was tired from a long day. He had been up all night, cramming for the test in the very class he was leaving." Ferre paused. He gulped and looked at the faces of his friends. They were all strained. "It was January, and the campus was more or less encased in a sheet of ice. Due to his sleepiness, he did not think the look before crossing the road. He fell on the ice, possibly injuring one of his extremities. A car that was skidding on the ice, a student driver, was unable to stop. The car hit the young man – Enjolras – and he…"

Ferre stopped short. Tears were already falling throughout the room. Jehan was buried in Bossuet's arm, and Joly gripped his other. Feuilly had one arm of the chair in a grip of death, and Bahorel and Courf were both crying silently, tears running down their faces.

The only people left dry were Ferre and Grantaire. Grantaire looked Ferre straight in the eyes.

"He died. Or were you going to leave us hanging?" Grantaire drawled sarcastically. Fourteen eyes, for the third time, widened. Grantaire never ceased to amaze. "He died, and he was covered in blood. And he was still fucking _breathing_ when you found him. He was fucking still _breathing_!" He cried. Grantaire was sitting up all the way, stock straight.

The room did not react.

"Do you understand?!" Grantaire nearly yelled, "He was _breathing_! He was alive. Fucking alive. For…for…for…" Grantaire stopped. His voice was hitching. He had, in the middle of his sentence, stood up, "He was…" Tears were forming in his eyes, falling down his face. "He was fucking coming to get me."

That was it. The hungover man crumbled to the floor. He was shaking.

"Fuck this. Fuck this to hell" He whispered. Even Jehan, the local purveyor of language had made no attempt at curbing Grantaire's words. "And he has red fucking cloth on the mirror."


	2. 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall

The sun was rising again. This time, on the first of February. This time, two weeks and three days later. This time, alone. This time, only one thing was the same:

Grantaire was hungover.

He groaned, turning over in his cot. He succeeded in falling to the floor, a mess of sheets and extremities. Tired curses streamed from his mouth in quick succession. They became more and more inventive until he finally ran out of words that could realistically go with "ass".

He shoved the sheet from himself and stood. Well, stumbled. He floundered, eventually finding the wall, which served to hold him in a reasonably upright position. Leaning there, he panted and clutched his head.

A minute or so later, he was off, walking on wobbly legs toward the kitchen. He reached the main space of the house, which could no longer be referred to as a room. Space that was not occupied by the couch and TV was cluttered with cups, plates, and an alarming array of bottles. Everything from beer to vodka was strewn on the ground.

Grantaire clumsily picked his way across his mess; he dropped onto the couch with a muffled thud. On the dented coffee table there were two as yet undrunk bottles of wine.

Grantaire reached for the nearest. He gave the label a cursory glance, eyes not reading the words. He slammed it against the table, sending shards of green-tinged glass flying. He ignored the ragged edges and spilled drink as he inhaled the wine.

Less than an hour later, Grantaire had settled into a stupor. It took nearly a bottle and a half for him to stop thinking. At least, the glazed look he was giving the blank television suggested that.

Not a sound came from the third story apartment until late in the afternoon. At precisely 5:46pm, Grantaire lurched from the couch, stumbled into the bathroom, and threw up. Only bile and wine came up. The kitchen was decorated in so many dishes that one would be hard pressed to find space for food. Even if there had been space, Grantaire had run out of real food the day previous. All that was left was dollar store ramen, and even drunk-into-oblivion Grantaire wouldn't eat that.

"One week." He whispered, looking briefly at the calendar on the wall. Seeing the picture that decorated "February", a waving French flag, Grantaire, gripped in some sort of rage, ripped the calendar from the wall and cast it into the toilet. He slammed the lid shut and fell to the ground. Before long, he was sprawled on his back, savoring the coolness of the floor.

It may have been minutes, it may have been hours, but Grantaire eventually roused himself enough to wobble back to his half empty bottle. It was almost ten before another noise was heard.

The door creaked; the bottle fell; someone yelped.

Even more glass littered the floor, but no wine. No, the bottle had been empty for hours. The sound of the door had awoken Grantaire enough that the bottle slipped. From the doorway, Ferre had yelped.

"Fuck!" Grantaire exclaimed, declining to sit up.

"Agh!" Ferre cried a moment later. In the blackness, Ferre had tripped and nearly fallen on one of the bottles scattered on the floor. "The heck?" He muttered, groping for a light.

The string of cursed that left Grantaire's lips was even more inventive than his morning run. This time he combined his vocabulary with "shit" instead.

"My God…" Ferre breathed, "…What…what in hell…?" His eyes peeked out above his glasses as he surveyed the room. His face was contorted into a look caught between disgust and disbelief.

"The fuck're you doin' here?" Grantaire slurred in Ferre's general direction. Ferre's head made a dramatic swing over to look at the disheveled head that peeked over the couch.

Disheveled is too weak a word. Grantaire's messy curls were quirked at bizarre angles, many sprinkled with a substance that Ferre assumed was vomit. His skin was slightly waxy and several orders paler than usual. Under his half-lidded eyes, he had garishly purple circles. He had a two or four day stubble scratching his jaw and several shaving cuts that had begun to scab.

"Coming to check on you." Ferre murmured. He picked his way across the mess to Grantaire, "It's been over a week since we saw you."

"One week, three days" Grantaire supplied, letting himself fall back onto the cushions.

"What…is this?" Ferre whispered. He blinked hard, and his hands were shaking a little.

"My apartment, or did ya think I was stayin' in someone else's?" Grantaire slurred his words slightly. Ferre blinked again. He sat down on the couch beside Grantaire, who was lying in a haphazard ball.

"That's not what I meant" Ferre's voice maintained a soft quality, "What is this. The mess, the smell, the –" Ferre didn't finish the sentence. He merely gestured to the bottles and broken glass littering the whole room.

"What's look like?" Grantaire muttered. He flipped onto his back and crossed his arms after the fashion of a petulant child.

"I'm not certain," Ferre said, "But I think you've been drinking."

Grantaire guffawed in a way entirely disappropriate to Ferre's tone. It was, in fact, slightly hysterical. He was reaching a fever pitch when he spoke,

"I thought ya'd never notice!" He cried. Ferre stared.

"Why?" Ferre asked plainly. His voice was barely loud enough to be heard, even without Grantaire's laughs.

"Though I'd said" Grantaire muttered, his mind yanking him back to a week and three days ago, "Life's more worth forgetting now than ever before"

Ferre gauged holes in his own hands with his eyes. His fingers tapped in time to his racing thoughts. His eyes darted across the bottles once again and finally rested on Grantaire. He yanked out his phone and texted, rapid fire.

 **To: Joly: I need you to come to R's apartment right now.**

Not a minute later, the response came

 **From: Joly: Why?**

 **To: Joly: Just get here.**

 **From: Joly: Why?**

 **To: Joly: Now**

Even in a text, Ferre booked no argument. Though Joly did not respond, the door creaked open fifteen minutes later. In those fifteen minutes, neither Grantaire nor Ferre had spoken. Grantaire had, in the beginning, taken Ferre's phone. Once he had read the texts, and voiced his disgust in the form of a growl, he resumed his stupor. Ferre just sat, lost in thought.

"I'm he-re" Joly chimed, not seeing the disaster of a room right away. He had a beaming smile on his face, and his cane swung through the air gaily. His expression changed in an instant when his eyes opened. "Goodness" was all he could say.

"I need you to look at him." Ferre said.

"Yes, right." Joly rushed, nearly tripping, to the couch. He squatted in front of Grantaire, taking a pulse from his neck.

"Fuck off" Grantaire muttered, squirming sleepily. He pushed drunkenly at Joly's hands. Ferre had stood up, and was pacing slowly. He ran his hands through his hair and over his face.

"What would –" he stopped short of finishing his favorite phrase.

"Enjolras do?" Joly finished it for him, breathing the words. Both men cast their gazes to the ground, blinking back tears. Grantaire merely turned to face away.

"I don't know"


End file.
